Pushing Murder (2 page)

“Paula's there too,” Sadd added.

I shook my head glumly. “She has got—and I'm keeping this
got—got
to go back to Boston. Poor Andy!”

“He was all for packing up the kids and coming too.”

I groaned. “This is awful. And at Christmas, too! I hate whoever did this to us. It can't have been anybody at the party—they were all Sal's friends and mine. The bastard must have followed his victim down to the Village and into the store.”

“
His
victim? Poisoners are more often women, I believe.”

I shrugged. “The point is—my God, Sadd—who was the stuff meant for?”

He said nothing, and I thrashed impatiently, receiving a sharp warning from my ankle. “Ouch! Damn! Oh, why couldn't I have had flu or something and missed Sal's opening? This is such a downer for her, and she's been so happy about the store and—and everything.”

“
Everything
meaning what's-his-name?”

“Yes. Dwight Dunlop. Nice guy.”

Sal, who had been a widow for as long as I, had met a pleasant widower her age at a small-business seminar at Cooper Union. They'd been married the week before.

“And I'll bet that in some crazy way”—I thrashed again—“she and Dwight are probably blaming themselves for this.”

“Yes, they are.” Sadd stood up. “They are also out in the hall champing to come in.”

“Really?” Delighted, I reached for the bed jacket. “Remind me to thank her for this. Where's the sleeve? There's everything on here but feathers.”

“You're sure you're up to seeing them?” Sadd started toward the door.

“Of course I'm sure.” I adjusted the lacy collar. “But I wish we had something to drink. They tell me in hospitals now you're allowed—”

“Have no fear.” Sadd grinned. “Dwight's come well supplied—and with Dr. Cullen's permission as well.”

And the next minute I was being smothered with hugs, heaped with flowers and candy, plied with champagne, and repeatedly asked if I could ever forgive them.

“Are you both insane?” I laughed and sipped happily. “Anybody would think you were responsible.”

“Sal feels as if we are.” Dwight Dunlop was a big, very personable man with a penchant for ribald jokes which he told extremely well. “If you hadn't come to our opening—”

“Rubbish.” I kissed Sal as she hung over me, her kind, humorous face full of concern.

“Oh, Clara, this is too ghastly. Who could have done such a thing to you? I hope the police are working night and day.”

“Police?” I looked at Sadd in alarm. He shook his head.

“No police.” He refilled my glass. “You see, Clara believes that she was merely an accidental victim and the poison was intended for somebody else.”

“Of course it was.” I said. “I'm sorry for the poor thing who was supposed to get it—I hope it isn't anybody we know, Sal—but it certainly wasn't me. Marvelous champagne.”

They looked at each other—oddly, I thought—then Dwight shrugged and Sal said, “You haven't had one of your … er … cases lately that might involve somebody who…?

I laughed and sipped.
This
was the right medicine. “I haven't had a ‘case,' as you put it, in over a year. My life has been bland and blameless. All I've done is play grandma and volunteer at the museum. By the way, thanks for the bed jacket. I feel like Jean Harlow.”

“What?” Sal stared at me. “Oh—well, it's awfully frilly, but I had to grab it fast.”

Dwight said, “Look what we brought you,” and dumped a tote full of paperbacks on my bed.

“You angels!” I cried.

“And here's the fall issue of
The Armchair Detective
”—Sal reached into another bag—“and a first edition of L. P. Hartley's stories, and
The Rumpole Omnibus.
”

“Sal!”

“I was going to save the Hartley for your birthday but—but nothing's too good for you now.”

She bit her lip and gulped, and Dwight looked at her anxiously.

“Will you please quit that?” I said. “I'll be out of here in a couple of days and—”

“—and on a plane to Florida with me,” said Sadd.

“Now you're talking!” Dwight was his jovial self again.

“Well, we'll see about Florida.” I was feeling very mellow. “I sort of hate to spend Christmas away from the kids. Now, how's business, and who's minding the store?”

Sal and Dwight both started to talk at once, and it was lovely and garbled and enthusiastic. There had been seventy—count 'em—seventy persons in already that day, sales had been brisk, and telephone orders above expectation. There was to be an article about them in some magazine and … I was conscious of growing tired. Sal sensed it at once.

“We're going.” She stood up. “If I can get in again—”

“Don't you dare,” I said. “You stay in that store and make money.”

She leaned over and hugged me hard. “Take care of your dear, darling self.”

I simply could not fathom this emotional parting. Dwight said, “Chin up!” and Sadd went out with them. I lay wondering what on earth …

Sadd came back and stood looking out the window. He said, “It's snowing. I haven't seen snow in five years.”

I poured myself the last of the champagne and said, “Sadd, what's bugging everybody? Am I in worse shape than I've been told?”

“No, you're in good shape actually.” He turned. “You're going to be fine.”

“Then why is everybody acting like—”

“Acting
as if.
Clara, really, that is the most deplorable—”

“Oh, for God's sake, tell me what's wrong!” I pulled off the bed jacket, which was tickling my chin unbearably. “Why is everybody acting
as if
I'm in mortal danger?”

“Because you are.” He picked up my glass and drained it. “Whoever tried to kill you at that party … tried again last night.”

3

I remember looking sideways at the residue of bubbles in the plastic champagne glass as Sadd set it down on the bedside table.

I presume I said, “How?” because Sadd said, “Poison again. Your supper tray.”

A nurse came in with a pill in a paper cup. She looked disapprovingly at the champagne bottle, then said, “I guess we'll wait on the medication, Mrs. Gamadge. Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thank you.”

She went out, and I took a deep breath. Impossible. Just plain impossible. Some mistake.

Sadd came back to the bed and picked up one of the books. “A first edition of Hartley—what a treasure. May I borrow the
Rumpole?
Er … we're taking you home. Tina and Paula will be here presently to help you dress. Dr. Cullen is against it, but we don't want you to spend another night on Bald Mountain.”

“Sadd, listen to me—”

“No, you listen to
me.
” He pulled up a plastic armchair and sat down leaning his elbows on the bed. “I'm the designated breaker-of-the-bad-news. Your children can't bear to tell you. So ‘listen up,' as the current expression goes—although why the addition of a mere preposition gives any more force—” He must have noticed my frozen face. “Clara, your accidental victim bit is out. Somebody has tried to kill you twice in one week, and we have to find out who and why. Who and why. That's what you'd say to anyone coming to you in a similar predicament.”

He started to put the books back in the tote. “We decided not to bring in the police till we could talk it over with you. But Henry's hired a private detective who's sitting outside your door right now. His name is Dan Schenck, and it seems you knew his grandfather.”

“Schenck!” Memories flooded back, almost drowning baleful thoughts. “Oh, the times that he and Henry Gamadge—”

“Nostalgia later, please. Right now, Clara, you must realize that either you help us or you're dead. Literally. And that would be a pity because your family would miss you and I'd lose a pied-à-terre in New York City.”

“Sadd—”

“Be quiet. Sal asked you the obvious question. And by the way, she and Dwight and Dr. Cullen are the only persons other than us who know about the second poisoning attempt. So let me repeat Sal's question. Whose business have you been messing in lately that might result in somebody else turning killer?”

“And let me repeat my answer. Nobody's. That's my point.” While Sadd was talking, I'd gone from bewilderment to terror to anger and was now back to bewilderment. “You heard what I said. It's over a year since anybody has asked me to ‘mess' in their business.”

“You're not involved in anything that's proving … unpropitious?”

“Not remotely.” I swallowed rather hard. “Was it—was it arsenic again?”

“Yes.”

“What was it in? Who found it?”

“Schenck found it.” Sadd stood up. “It was in the sugar packet on the saucer of your coffee cup. He noticed a tear across the top and took it with him to be analyzed when he went off duty. His wife spells him—it seems they're in business together.” He moved to the door, which I now realized was always kept closed. “Do you want to thank him? He probably saved your life.”

“Of course I want to thank him. And talk to him about his grandfather. We won't tell him that I don't take sugar in my coffee. I take saccharin.”

It was feeble, in poor taste, and I was instantly ashamed, but the whole business was incomprehensible. I didn't need this grotesque puzzle along with an aching ankle. The last year of my life had been singularly uneventful. I'd not had even one request for the kind of help or advice that my apprehensive family knows so often leads to trouble. It was all an insane dream. Surely I'd wake up presently in my brownstone on Sixty-third Street and regale my friends with an account of it.

A dark-haired young man with a mustache followed Sadd into the room.

“Dan Schenck!” I held out my arms, and he came straight to the bed and kissed me. “You even
look
like your grandpa!”

“He thought the world of you, Mrs. Gamadge.” His brown eyes were troubled. “I felt terrible when your son called me, but I'm glad it was me he called.”

“So am I. Where do you live, Dan? Do you have a family?”

“Yep. My wife works with me, and we have a little boy. We live on West Fifty-ninth in an old building where the rents are frozen, thank God.”

Sadd pulled up another chair. “It seems you're following in your grandfather's footsteps.”

“Well, sort of. He was with the FBI. I'm in business for myself.”

“So was he, practically, when he worked with Henry Gamadge.” I smiled at the boy fondly. “I remember my husband saying, ‘Schenck claims I'll get him fired yet.' During the war when there was gas rationing, Henry had the poor man chasing suspects because he had a government car. Once he sent him up to Connecticut, and your grandpa said, ‘You'd better be able to tie this in to Bureau business,' and Henry said, ‘I can—I'm certain it's murder.'”

Murder.
The word hung there, and we stopped smiling. Dan said, “What can you give me to go on, Mrs. Gamadge?”

“Nothing,” I said helplessly. “Not one thing.” I explained how mundane the past year had been. Then I added, “You were an astute guy to notice the sugar, Dan. I really owe you.”

He sat forward. “Actually, it was one of those little pink saccharin packets. I was standing near the rack when they brought the trays up—”

My eyes had locked with Sadd's, and Dan picked up on it at once.

“That's what you use?”

I nodded, and at that moment into the room walked Henry, Tina, Paula, and Dr. Cullen. Jolted though I felt, I managed, with Sadd's help, to make introductions. Then Dan said, “Back to my post,” and went out.

It was the first time I'd seen Dr. Cullen except through a sort of haze. She was very tall, dark haired, dark eyed, and at the moment very businesslike. She said at once, “Mrs. Gamadge, I'm absolutely opposed to your going home.” She took my hand and held it firmly. “I'm appalled at your situation, but it appears that you're well protected and I feel it's essential that you stay here a few more days and be monitored. At your age…”

She went on to rub it in about my age, and everybody stood looking glum. She ended by saying that she perfectly understood our terrible anxiety and concern, but if they or I insisted on my being removed, she would have to resign all responsibility.

I spoke up, trying to sound spunky and with it. “Dr. Cullen is absolutely right. I stay.” I looked at my daughter. “And
you
darling, go at once back to your family.”

Paula burst into tears and cast herself upon me sobbing that, yes, Henry was taking her to the airport at five but how could she bear to leave when … et cetera, et cetera. I patted and consoled her, promised I would come to Boston right after Christmas, and Tina took her into the bathroom to mop up. No one else had moved, and Dr. Cullen, whom I'd have expected to flee during such a pitiful outburst, had stood motionless and grave throughout. Now she said quietly, “You all have my total sympathy. I'll be honest—this experience is a first for me. I've had some unusual cases, but I've never encountered—er—”

“—a nice elderly lady with a contract out on her,” said Sadd.

I giggled weakly, and Henry looked as if he was trying not to. The nurse came back in with my pill, and Dr. Cullen said, “This tranquilizer should help.” I gulped the huge thing, and she went on, moving toward the door, “We've thought it best not to discuss this matter with the floor staff. Sister Agnes has been told that the surveillance is required to protect you from an undisclosed threat—”

“I love euphemisms,” murmured Sadd.